Submerged in Water

Watching him, surrounded by his obsessed fangirls, had to be the most pointless way to waste my time in the world.

He looked so at ease, it was hard to imagine that he could be the thoughtful and all-knowing Gandhi that Rune and Robyn were making him out to be. The more I watched him, the more I realized this entire thing was stupid and that the chances of him being an Ender rivalled the chance of me growing a pair of wings.

Then, he turned to notice me staring at him. A huge shit-eating grin spread across his face as he caught me. I figured it was now or never.

I walked up with my tray that held one apple and a dry salad of seaweed that resembled just a normal salad. I plopped the tray down at his table, not caring if I was welcomed or not. "Hey." I said. It had to be obvious that I didn't want to be anywhere near him.

I turned to look at Rune, Robyn, Talon and Layla staring at me at the table across the cafe. Rune and Robyn looked worried and Talon and Layla's faces were just confused.

"Hey." He said to me, watching me carefully as I sat down at the circular table. I was right across from him, so there was no way he could 'accidentally' touch me.

His fangirls welcomed me as well.

"So what's with the appearance?" He asked me straight out. "Scott told me the story already, about how you didn't want to meet me."

I shrugged. "Yeah, he kind of caught me at a bad time."

"I'm sure." He wasn't.

This 'friend' thing obviously wasn't going to work. I debated for a moment if I should get up and go back to my own table and forget this whole thing ever happened but I knew the Oro table of prominence were listening in on our entire conversation and sighed in frustration.

"Bet you're wishing you did now, huh?" He knew he was hot shit.

"Yeah sure." I wasn't impressed. "Listen, I need to talk to you."

"Okay." He was listening.

"In private."

A sigh and then. "Fine."

The fangirls got all emotional as he left the table and we exited the cafe. I didn't want the Oros listening to us, just in case I wanted to mouth him off. In reality, I knew I couldn't fake a friendship with this guy. So I went with my original plan and that was just to call him out.

We walked outside of the building and sat at a bench on the front lawn of the school. He put his arms on the top of the bench and raised his eyebrows at me. I was all the way on the other side of the bench and made sure he couldn't touch me unless he made an obvious attempt to reach over.

"Let's just skip the pleasantries." I waved my hand. "Something is up with you and Scott. I want to know what it is."

He laughed. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, Jonathan, we've already figured out who you are."

He had a coy smile on his face. "Is that so?"

"Yeah and..."

In a last attempt to know directly if he was Ender or not, I reached out my hand dramatically to him. Offering it, so that he could know something about me.

"I know you want to." I teased him, shaking my hand.

The smile now gone and his face turning stone cold. He hesitated briefly before grabbing my hand. Just like with Scott, he released it almost immediately. His eyes raised to mine and he stared at me like I was a demon. "He was right."

Surprise. "Who?"

"Scott."

"What did you see?" I asked him.

"A lot." He answered simply, still staring at my hand.

"Oh that can't be good." I groaned, knowing that my life was probably about to become more screwed up that it already is. "So you really are an Ender then?"

"Yeah, I thought you figured it out?" He asked.

"Well, we still weren't sure. Please tell me it was you guys that planted the hydrangea." I begged desperately.

The smile came back on his face. "Wow, who has the skills in herbology to know that?" He chuckled. "I wish I could've been there to see it. You can imagine Scott's surprise when you showed up at the house looking fine."

"Why did you do it?"

He shrugged. "We had to be sure but we didn't want to reveal ourselves." He brought his hand back to be laid on his thigh. "Oh and by the way, it was my idea to use the hydrangea. Scott wanted to use this herb that was similar but would just make you tell the truth for three hours. I thought this would be a lot more fun."

"Scott was right when he said you were uh... different."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I'm a little bit on the crazy side. I hope that doesn't bother you."

I stared at him blankly, hoping he wasn't expecting an answer to the statement.

"Look, I'm not really sure what's going on with all you guys but the reason Scott and I have been incognito for so long is because we really didn't know how to handle the situation. We know about you, Queen Inna and everyone else and we figured it was for the best if we just remained hidden right now. Knowing too much information isn't always comforting." He leaned forward and put his hands together. "That and we were a little afraid to approach you all because we didn't know if you were hostile or not."

"You thought we would hurt you or something?" I laughed at that.

"We just don't know." He sighed. "This might be a little too much information for you but I think you deserve to know... that is, if you don't know already."

"Know what?" I sat up straight. "Is this about what you got from me when you touched my hand?"

"Yes... and no." He stood up a little straighter and turned to look at me. "We can't understand you. Usually, we can catch things, our intuition can see everything that pertains to a person but when we both look at you, we don't see that."

"You don't see anything?"

"Not... exactly. We see stuff but it's like... it's almost like there's so many different things going with you at once that we can't make it out. It's like you're leading different lives in different locations. We see things and then the next day we see more things and just now when I touched you, thousands of unknown faces flashed in my eyes, so many at once that I couldn't even pick out yours."

"What? That doesn't make any sense."

He scoffed. "Tell me about it. Scott and I have been racking our brains about it for a while now. We just don't know but we have people looking into it."

"People...?" I didn't like the sound of that.

"Just my sister. Diara."